1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a viewer for film cassettes wherein the viewer has improved apparatus for facilitating the ready insertion and removal of the film cassettes from a complementary cassette receiving well in the viewer and more particularly to a viewer for a film cassette wherein a cassette receiving well in the viewer includes improved apparatus for guiding the edge of the leading end wall of the cassette as it enters the well past a pair of drive heads extending outward from a side wall of the well such that complete insertion of the cassette brings the drive heads into driving engagement with complementary recessed drive couplings in the side of the cassette.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the recently developed motion picture art, the term "multi-purpose film cassette" has been used to denote a generally parallelepiped housing in which a strip of light sensitive film is initially packaged along with a pod or reservoir of processing fluid such that the film strip may be exposed, processed and viewed by inserting the cassette containing the film strip in an appropriate motion picture camera, and subsequently inserting the exposed film cassette into a viewing apparatus operative to coat the exposed film strip with processing fluid to develop the conventional series of image frames for viewing by projection in a very short period of time. The film strip is connected respectively at opposite ends to a cassette contained supply spool and a cassette contained take-up spool. The film strip is wound on the latter spool both during exposure in the camera and during projection in the viewing apparatus by driving the take-up spool after which the film is returned to the supply spool on rewinding as well as for processing. Such cassettes are also provided with a light reflecting prism by which projection light may be directed from the reflecting surface outwardly of the cassette through the opening provided therein for exposure and projection. Disclosures of viewing apparatus for handling such cassettes may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,830,564 issued Aug. 10, 1974 to John F. Batter, Jr.; 3,909,120 issued Sept. 30, 1975 to Joseph A. Stella; and 3,941,465 issued Mar. 2, 1976 to Irwin E. Figge, et al.
While the cassette receiving well of such viewing apparatus represents only a part of the viewer contained equipment needed to process and project the cassette contained film strip, the nature of the general system imposes several requirements on the viewer structure defining the well. The cassette receiving well includes a planar side wall against which the cassette nests when it is fully inserted within the well. The cassette receiving well includes a pair of spaced apart drive heads which extend laterally outward therefrom for complementary engagement with a pair of recessed cassette drive couplings which respectively connect to the supply and take-up spools within the cassette. Thus when fully inserted, the cassette nests against the planar side wall of the well with the drive heads engaged to respective couplings. Since the cassette ultimately nests upon complete insertion against the planar side wall of the cassette receiving well difficulty arises as a result of the leading edge of the cassette hitting the drive heads in a manner which inhibits complete insertion of the cassette into its receiving well. In addition, the cassette must be readily removable from the cassette receiving well. Toward this end, resilient means may be provided at the bottom of the cassette receiving well to yieldably urge a completely inserted cassette outwardly therefrom.
Thus, it is a primary object of this invention to provide a cassette receiving well with improved apparatus for facilitating ready insertion and removal of the cassette from the receiving well.
It is another object of this invention to provide the cassette receiving well of a viewer with improved apparatus for facilitating the ready insertion of the cassette within the receiving well by guiding the leading edge of the cassette entering the well past a pair of drive heads extending laterally outward from a side wall of the well.
It is still another object of this invention to provide the cassette receiving well of a film viewer with an improved apparatus that not only accommodates the ready insertion of the cassette within the well but also accommodates the ready removal of the cassette from the well by resiliently urging the bottom of the cassette to move in a direction outward of the cassette receiving well.
Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter. The invention accordingly comprises the mechanism and system possessing the construction, the combination of elements and the arrangement of parts which are exemplified in the following detailed disclosure.